“The Cold Line”
Verse 1
It was a Tuesday in Minnesota,
Grey snow piled along the curb,
The kind of cold that gets inside you
Even when you don’t say a word.
A siren cracked the quiet morning,
Coffee steamed and radios spoke,
They said another name was added
To the long list nobody wrote.
Verse 2
There was a kid late for the school bus,
A nurse just getting off her shift,
A man who’d crossed three borders
With everything he couldn’t lift.
They all stood there at the counter
Where the lottery tickets lay,
When fear came in wearing a badge
And nobody knew what to say.
Chorus
And the ice don’t care who you are,
It just freezes what it finds,
Turns a neighbor into a number,
Turns a heartbeat into a line.
And they say it’s just an order,
Say it’s written, signed, and true—
But the cold line keeps on moving
Right through me, right through you.
Verse 3
They talked about “procedure,”
Used words like “secure” and “clean,”
Said it’s safer when the lines are drawn
Between the “us” and the “them.”
But I watched a mother shaking
As they read her something fast,
And I wondered who decides which life
Gets to stay and which is past.
Verse 4
Now there’s a cross by the bus stop,
Just a scarf tied to a pole,
Flowers freezing in the twilight
Like a question with no goal.
The news moved on by Wednesday,
Found another fire to chase,
But the snow remembers everything
That disappears from a place.
Chorus
Yeah the ice don’t care who you are,
Or the promises you keep,
It don’t hear your kid say “Daddy”
In the middle of their sleep.
They say it’s not about hatred,
Say it’s just what must be done—
But you don’t need to pull a trigger
For a life to come undone.
Verse 5
I heard a vet down at the diner
Say, “That’s not what I fought for, son,”
And a preacher fold his hands and say
“We’ve forgotten we’re all someone.”
There’s a line in every winter
Where the river starts to break,
And it sounds just like a country
Making one more small mistake.
Verse 6
So if you’re reading from a paper,
If you’re knocking on a door,
If you’re just doing what they told you
Like a hundred times before—
Remember every order’s written
By a human hand somewhere,
And the cold is just a choice we make
When we stop pretending care.
Final Chorus
’Cause the ice don’t care who you are,
But I swear to God we should,
We can thaw a little mercy
In the hardest neighborhood.
There’s a warmth that’s still called justice,
There’s a line we don’t have to cross—
And it’s colder than Minnesota
When we tally up the loss.
Outro
Yeah it was Tuesday in Minnesota,
Snow still whitening the ground,
And somewhere a name is waiting
To be more than just a sound.
Jan 28
Jan 28, 2026 at 5:53 PM UTC
“The Cold Line”
Verse 1
It was a Tuesday in Minnesota,
Grey snow piled along the curb,
The kind of cold that gets inside you
Even when you don’t say a word.
A siren cracked the quiet morning,
Coffee steamed and radios spoke,
They said another name was added
To the long list nobody wrote.
Verse 2
There was a kid late for the school bus,
A nurse just getting off her shift,
A man who’d crossed three borders
With everything he couldn’t lift.
They all stood there at the counter
Where the lottery tickets lay,
When fear came in wearing a badge
And nobody knew what to say.
Chorus
And the ice don’t care who you are,
It just freezes what it finds,
Turns a neighbor into a number,
Turns a heartbeat into a line.
And they say it’s just an order,
Say it’s written, signed, and true—
But the cold line keeps on moving
Right through me, right through you.
Verse 3
They talked about “procedure,”
Used words like “secure” and “clean,”
Said it’s safer when the lines are drawn
Between the “us” and the “them.”
But I watched a mother shaking
As they read her something fast,
And I wondered who decides which life
Gets to stay and which is past.
Verse 4
Now there’s a cross by the bus stop,
Just a scarf tied to a pole,
Flowers freezing in the twilight
Like a question with no goal.
The news moved on by Wednesday,
Found another fire to chase,
But the snow remembers everything
That disappears from a place.
Chorus
Yeah the ice don’t care who you are,
Or the promises you keep,
It don’t hear your kid say “Daddy”
In the middle of their sleep.
They say it’s not about hatred,
Say it’s just what must be done—
But you don’t need to pull a trigger
For a life to come undone.
Verse 5
I heard a vet down at the diner
Say, “That’s not what I fought for, son,”
And a preacher fold his hands and say
“We’ve forgotten we’re all someone.”
There’s a line in every winter
Where the river starts to break,
And it sounds just like a country
Making one more small mistake.
Verse 6
So if you’re reading from a paper,
If you’re knocking on a door,
If you’re just doing what they told you
Like a hundred times before—
Remember every order’s written
By a human hand somewhere,
And the cold is just a choice we make
When we stop pretending care.
Final Chorus
’Cause the ice don’t care who you are,
But I swear to God we should,
We can thaw a little mercy
In the hardest neighborhood.
There’s a warmth that’s still called justice,
There’s a line we don’t have to cross—
And it’s colder than Minnesota
When we tally up the loss.
Outro
Yeah it was Tuesday in Minnesota,
Snow still whitening the ground,
And somewhere a name is waiting
To be more than just a sound.
